Delete My Love for You novel Chapter 20

“What did you just say?”

Darren froze, his mind scrambling to catch up. The moment he understood, he shot to his feet, a storm brewing on his face.

“Grandpa, you can’t be serious. Are you joking with me?”

Nathan Harrington lifted his gaze, icy and unforgiving. “You foolish boy. Do you think the Harrington family’s four-century-old rules are for show? If a man abandons his wife, he gets a hundred lashes; if a woman leaves her husband, she gets thirty. That’s tradition, set down by our ancestors.”

Darren’s fists clenched, his eyes narrowing with cold fury. “Tradition, huh?”

So Charlotte had really taken thirty lashes?

After a tense pause, Darren seemed to collect himself, his tone turning calm, almost skeptical. “Grandpa, you’re a devout Christian. You’re always preaching compassion. There’s no way you’d truly punish her like that. You’re just conspiring with Charlotte to trick me, aren’t you?”

Nathan didn’t bother to respond to Darren’s accusation. Instead, he gave the butler a subtle nod.

The butler immediately stepped forward, handing Darren a set of documents.

“I gave Charlotte my word, and I intend to keep it. Darren, sign the divorce papers. I’ll have the butler handle the rest.”

Darren snatched the agreement from the butler’s hand, flipping straight to the last page. The sharp, unpolished signature—“Charlotte”—stung him like a slap.

But as he skimmed through the contents, a bitter laugh escaped him. He tossed the papers aside with a flick of his wrist.

“Grandpa, did Charlotte forget to mention our agreement? She leaves with nothing and cuts all ties with Noah. That’s the deal we made. Yet this agreement doesn’t even mention it. Clearly, you two are running some clumsy little charade here—trying to fool me with a sob story and a dramatic exit.”

As he spoke, Darren felt a faint sense of relief.

If it was all just theatre, then those thirty lashes must have been fake…

But Nathan’s voice trembled with anger. “So that’s how it is? You mistreat Charlotte, and you still want to throw her out with nothing? From now on, you’re no grandson of mine! Butler, show him the door!”

Darren was practically shoved out of the house, but the suffocating unease in his chest only grew heavier.

He drove straight to the hospital. Before he knew it, he was standing outside Charlotte’s room.

He didn’t wait for a reply. Driven by a sudden, desperate need to know the truth, he yanked the covers away.

Before Charlotte could even gasp, his hand caught hold of the bandages crisscrossing her back, still fresh from being dressed.

Rip.

The sound of fabric tearing filled the room, followed instantly by Charlotte’s scream—raw, guttural, and ragged.

“Aaahhh!”

Agony, like being flayed alive, crashed over her in waves. Charlotte’s vision went black; she nearly passed out.

The wounds, barely stitched together, split open again. Crimson flesh and fresh blood glared up at Darren, the sight so shocking it made his own blood run cold.

She had really been whipped.